Calculator
How long will aerating your lawn take?
Enter your lawn size, the machine’s working width and how many passes you plan. A typical 5,000 sq ft yard with a 32-inch tow-behind takes under an hour for two passes; the same job with an 18-inch walk-behind takes roughly twice that.
Your numbers
- Working time
- 51 min
- Passes planned
- 2
- Approx. plugs pulled
- 6,000
Time includes about 35% overhead for turns, ballast top-ups and clearing tines. Aerate when soil is moist but not saturated — bone-dry clay stops a core aerator from taking a plug at all, and mud packs the tines solid.
Manual Core Aerator
Pulls real plugs. On clay, this is the tool that actually changes anything.
How many passes do you need?
- Sandy or loamy soil: one pass is enough most years.
- Clay or heavy foot traffic: two passes at roughly 45 degrees to each other, so the plug spacing halves.
- Never plugged before: two passes, then a light topdressing to keep the channels open.
Moisture is the whole job
Water the day before, aerate the day after. Dry clay bounces the tines and pulls nothing; saturated soil packs inside them. If yours is coming up empty, start with aerator not pulling plugs, then compare methods in liquid vs. manual core aeration.
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